Adjusted Reality

Howdy campers!  I went above and beyond the call of duty and recorded TWO new videos yesterday about FREE TRIATHLON SPEED.

That’s right, these videos tell you how to go faster at transitions without hours of work and sweating or spending a bunch of money.  #winning for reals!

This first one (above) will walk you through how to practice transitions, what should (and shouldn’t) be in your transitions, and how to deal with bike check in the day before the race.

Gotta love the thumbnail for the second one.  I should probably wear one of those at all times…

The second one talks about how to navigate race morning and race day handling your transitions like a boss.

Debriefing myself on what went right/wrong/notes for next time:

When I pick a topic, I need to write it out, divide it in half, and then divide it in half again.  I have a whole extra video or two of content I didn’t record on different types of transitions and some other more advanced stuff, which I might record someday, but I need to cap the content at a reasonable time frame, and ALWAYS keep part 1 as short as possible (10-15 mins max).

Practicing beforehand was AWESOME.  I did one run through 2 days before.  I timed myself and decided to split my video after getting halfway through in 15 minutes.  Then, I did a run through of each video right before I recorded it.  I think I “ummmed” and “so….” ‘d a little bit less and stayed a little more focused.  I was also a little more on top of the visual changes that way.  At first I regretted not recording my practices, but I think I would have spent time agonizing over which one to use and wanting to splice them together.  This is one take video.

Still need to work on my mic levels.  I have everything as turned up as I know how and I even moved it closer to my face, and it was still *kinda* low.  Need the fabulous Zliten’s technical assistance before I do the next few.

Other things that went better:

• Lighting.  I was less washed out on camera and the green screen worked BETTER.
• More confident. I feel like this 4 days of eating healthy/less has made my face less puffy.  Even if it’s only in my head, I’m going with it.

So, I feel like at this point I’ve knocked out most of the obvious things that were crappy.  I have a process and I have a format.  Here are my goals for the next few:

• Make a 5 minute tops video.  Figure out some sort of short bite size and useful content I can cover in 3-5 minutes.  I don’t want to completely abandon the longer format, but it’s a challenge to me to be informative and concise.
• Space out a little less during my videos.  Practicing helped me “um” and “so” a lot less, but I could get better.
• Figure out some of the advanced beginner you tube stuff.  How do I put callouts and links on my video (to my website, to part 1 or part 2 of the next video, etc).  GCN does a great job at this stuff.  I don’t need to be this awesome yet but being able to link part 1 and part 2 of these videos together would be sweet.

Of the topics I have in front of me, I think Five Healthy Breakfasts for People Who Hate Eggs and Oatmeal is the most likely to be conscise, so that’s probably next.  Thanks for watching, reading, and/or playing along in my adventures in video! 🙂